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Tortilla Flat

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a Camelot on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil and civil rectitude.

The Winter of Our Discontent

In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American."

East of Eden

This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

The Wayward Bus

In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst.

Travels with Charley in Search of America

In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.

The Grapes of Wrath

At once naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath is perhaps the most American of American classics. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation during the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are forced to travel west to the promised land of California.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts. Drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, it is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.

The Moon Is Down

"Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat." This compelling, dignified and moving novel was inspired by and based upon the Nazi invasion of neutral Norway. Set in an imaginary European mining town, it shows what happens when a ruthless totalitarian power is up against an occupied democracy with an overwhelming desire to be free.

Of Mice and Men

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck’s work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men (1937), creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and shared dream that make an individual’s existence meaningful.

Once There Was a War

In 1943 John Steinbeck was on assignment for The New York Herald Tribune, writing from Italy and North Africa, and from England in the midst of the London blitz. In his dispatches he focuses on the human-scale effect of the war, portraying everyone from the guys in a bomber crew to Bob Hope on his USO tour and even fighting alongside soldiers behind enemy lines. Taken together, these writings create an indelible portrait of life in wartime.

The Pearl

In this short book illuminated by a deep understanding and love of humanity, John Steinbeck retells an old Mexican folk tale: the story of the great pearl, how it was found, and how it was lost. For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to the tragedy. For Steinbeck, Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems.

A Russian Journal

Steinbeck and Capa's account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.Just after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.

The Long Valley

Adopting the structure and themes of Arthurian legend, in Tortilla Flat John Steinbeck creates a Camelot on a shabby hillside above Monterey on the California coast and peoples it with a colorful band of knights. As he chronicles the thoughts and emotions, temptations and lusts of the knights, Steinbeck spins a tale as compelling as the famous legends of the Round Table.

America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.

The Pastures of Heaven

Today, nearly 40 years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. We have begun publishing his many works for the first time as Penguin Classics. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long Valley, The Moon Is Down, The Pastures of Heaven, and Tortilla Flat.

The Red Notebook

Heroic bookseller Laurent Letellier comes across an abandoned handbag on a Parisian street. There's nothing in the bag to indicate who it belongs to, although there's all sorts of other things in it. Laurent feels a strong impulse to find the owner and tries to puzzle together who she might be from the contents of the bag. Especially a red notebook with her jottings, which really makes him want to meet her. Without even a name to go on, and only a few of her possessions to help him, how is he to find one woman in a city of millions?

The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal, a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss.

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the story introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. Follow the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of the 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

In 1937, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight", For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The Red Pony

Raised on a ranch in northern California, Jody is well-schooled in the hard work and demands of a rancher's life. He is used to the way of horses, too; but nothing has prepared him for the special connection he will forge with Gabilan, the hot-tempered pony his father gives him. With Billy Buck, the hired hand, Jody tends and trains his horse, restlessly anticipating the moment he will sit high upon Gabilan's saddle. But when Gabilan falls ill, Jody discovers there are still lessons he must learn about the ways of nature and, particularly, the ways of man.

A Moveable Feast

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft.

Publisher's Summary

Here is Steinbeck’s tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependent on one another for both physical and emotional survival.

Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world, where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works.

Cannery Row is one of my favorite books of all time. I have read and reread it more times than I can recall. I bought this audiobook out of curiosity, I wanted to hear the words for a change. Jerry Farden's narrative perfectly captures not only Steinbeck's love of his Cannery Row characters and sense of community, but his lyrical language as well.

Which is the reason I recommend reading Cannery Row before listening to it. No narrator can show you the odd punctuation and mystifying strings of words Steinbeck so lovingly assembled in this book, which I think of as his 'ode to the English language'. It quite simply deserves a leisurely reading.

Once read, I do recommend listening to Mr. Farden's joyful interpretation of this wonderful story.

I was really excited to listen to Steinbeck's Cannery Row and I was not disappointed; albeit, I am a bit conflicted. Previously I listened to Of Mice and Men and comparing the two (especially with Gary Sinese as narrator of the later) I enjoyed Of Mice and Men so much more. However, Steinbeck's words in both are invigorating and descriptive; I didn't want to stop hearing from the characters and their respective points of view.

Cannery Row, as far as a captivating story, isn't really that much to praise. But I enjoyed every bit of it and just like Of Mice and Men, the character's follies and environmental descriptions are where Steinbeck rules. It's really a simple and sweet story, yet is still emotionally impacting for the listener.

Steinbeck builds characters that you fall in love with and then struggle to support as they drift into trouble; usually of their own making. The story is about respect and how people on Cannery Row have lives devoid of meaning apart from place and time. They are not people like me, yet they are every part of my life experience. Doc is the main character, a man with a solid education, job and place in the world of marine biology. Yet he is empty in places that Steinbeck is able to reveal and describe.

Mack and the Boys are everywhere and add spice to the community on Cannery Row. They want to express gratitude for Doc and make a mess of things. Steinbeck takes us through the slow motion disaster of a party and builds tension as we wait for Doc to return home to the destruction Mack and the Boys created.

The narrator does a nice job of giving voice to people who we can only try to imagine from the words on the page as they share their story of respect, loneliness and community.

If you like Steinbeck this short book will not disappoint. It isn't Grapes Of Wrath, but it is still a fine work by an author who knows how to build characters that are irresistible.

I never read CANNERY ROW in school and was well into my 30s the first time I read it. The book is almost a poem. The way the humanity of the characters--none of having very much in the way of material possessions--is gently revealed through the subtle building of the plot is a joy to read. They are very rich. It is Steinbeck at his best. I waited a long time for Audible to have Steinbeck available and I'm so glad I can re-live this book in this form.

The performance by Narrator Jerry Farden is adequate. He gives voice to the inhabitants of Cannery Row in a way that adds depth to this audio version. The only negative being the book is to short.

Not at all what I expected from the book. It was deep, poignant, symbolic and fun at the same time. Somehow I had missed reading this classic and bought it only to fill in my missing knowlege void. I'd buy it again in a heatbeat for the joy of it and will read again soon. Heck, I'd pay 35 frogs for it... maybe even 75.

The book is great, and I thought the narration was really good too. The narrator sounds like someone who could've been there watching the whole thing from an upstairs window in one of the shops. Fantastic.

Read this for the first time in my early teens. revisited on audio. Originally the story was powerful enough to propel itself to a permanent spot in my top five, and place its author in sole command of the distinction of "best fiction author, classic or modern," in my limited scope. This narration, however, took it to a whole new level. I cannot, nor shall attempt to, say enough as eloquently as the sentiment deserves, how fully the narration captures and amplifies the tone and feel of this book. Done.

I've been looking for a place exactly like cannery row in all its simplistic beauty complete with all its character and characters since I was born.. so you can imagine my joy in finding all those elements in this book and its sequel sweet thursday. a community of that time that's reasonably Simple,honest and, caring,excepting ,thoughtful and,un-poisoned by money, bureaucracy,greed,status and voracious land,development, I love how that old boiler was fixed up twice as a place to live lol- and how the palace flophouse and the whorehouse where also excepted parts of the community.Its a time and place where People were judged by who they were rather than what they did for a living or how they dressed. Needles to say the above is but 1 element of this story. Steinbeck knows how to write of this sphere because he lived it . I wish he had written more in this series,It seems to me it was his intention, because theres quite a gap in years.. There should have been a book between cannery row and sweet thursday, Wish there was!! maybe Ill write it lol .I wish I had that ability .late last night I finished his last book-winter of our discontent-it put me into an immediate depression the instant I finished it. the shallow will think oh I wont read that, and the wise will know that a work that can move you so much is defiantly worth reading. Ive been compelled to read all of steinbecks major works in a row, since my first steinbeck book, the stunning EAST OF EDEN. When an author brings so much pain,pleasure and emotionally cutting fodder to the deepest part of you- for you to sort out and digest-and it also manages to bypasses your defenses to your soul, thats an artist still lives and is immortal.